At the historic Second Anglo Sikh War Memorial in Chillianwala (Pakistan), a conversation with Mahmud Khan.
Indian history textbooks refrain to mention the accounts of Sikh history which occurred on the soil of Pakistan, and these chapters remain suppressed in Pakistan as they are considered non-Islamic. In this tussle, the likes of the epic Battle of Chillianwala receive no mention in either country.
The Punjabi Army had revolted in Jan 1849, merely three years after British entered the Punjab. In comparison, the Purbia soldiers from Bengal, UP and Bihar, who had helped British conquer entire India, revolted after 100 years of loyalty. Had the Purbia soldiers joined the Punjabi revolt at Chillianwala in 1849, the Independence of India would have happened a century earlier, and neither would the nation experience the partition.

Such glorious chapters of Punjabi legacy are today diminished to a mere gurgle of a hookah!

Photographed in Oct 2014, during the research for the book “LOST HERITAGE The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan”